We are just over a week removed from SHOT 2024, so the announcements are beginning to come out. There are new things from Wilcox, Swaro, etc.
For the things priced in a somewhat less... specialized... way, there is the new Leupold Mark 4HD line of riflescopes.
The PDF with the specs is attached.
I have not yet seen these scopes, but I plan to. I have a meeting with Leupold during SHOT and these scopes are certainly on my list.
The most interesting is probably the 2.5-10x42 FFP with illuminated TMR reticle. At 21 ounces that looks like a potentially nicely packaged MPVO.
The reticle selection is, unfortunately unsurprisingly, is slightly Leupolded, but not too terribly.
TMR is viable for an MPVO.
The 4.5-18x52 model is available with illuminated PR1-Mil, which good.
PR2 is still not illuminated (hopefully they will finally do it in the Mark5), but it is available in the 6-24x52 and 8-32x56 scopes.
PR3 is a new design that is kinda like PR2 without the tree.
The three higher magnification scopes, 4.5-18x52, 6-24x52 and 8-32x56 are 34mm tube. The rest are 30mm.
The LPVO is a SFP 1-4.5x24 that is presumably the same scope as they have been using for Hi Power competition for a couple of years now. It is a nice scope, but unless the rules limit you to 4.5x on the high end, it is not clear why you would take it over the very ubiquitous and capable 1-6x designs out there. On the other hand, I remember it being a pretty nice scope and the proliferation of Leupold's locking turrets across the whole Mark 4HD product line is a welcome development. It is a nice turret system that has done well for them.
All in all, this looks quite good on paper. We'll see how they perform and what real world prices will end up being.
Zeiss makes quite a few binoculars. Aside from an occasional misstep (Terra...), most of them are pretty good.
As with any product line, some models come together better than others.
Zeiss' SFL product line is something I looked at briefly, but never dwelled on it too much. They seemed like nice binoculars, but I never really looked at them carefully.
Imagine my surprise when the folks at Zeiss reached out and asked if I want to take a look at their new 12x50 version of the SFL.
They know I live out west, so they must have heard I have the space to really work out where the limits of a 12x50 binocular are.
Given that sending me a product to look at involves certain risks (until I am pretty much done with the review, I ignore marketing literature and any and all attempts from any company to tell me what to say), I figured that they either decided to live dangerously or that they are pretty damn confident of how good the product is.
I do not know for sure which one it is, but the ...
DNT's 7-35x56 has been here since February and I have managed to have some reasonably significant amount of time with it to date. This video is mostly in the nature of a "first look", although a bit more extensive than that. I will follow up with a careful examination of the reticle and low light performance.
https://amzn.to/4iGPl9w
So far, I am quite impressed with what the scope offers for the money.
Talking to one of the owners, he said he wants to be the undisputed bang for the buck champ under $1k. It is too early to be sure, but he might have a point there.
So far, I am quite impressed with the optic for what it costs and everything I have heard about customer support has been good.
The scope I have did have a minor glitch with the focus cell (I talk about that in the video), but it seems to have worked itself out. Perhaps there was some sort of a minor machining mark somewhere in there that got polished out.
Beyond that, it has been a good scope for me. I tried it on a ...
Here is another scope that has been here entirely too long without a formal review.
Delta Javelin 4.5-30x56, along with Athlon Ares ETR 4.5-30x56, stands at the top of the ladder of Chinese-made precision scopes I have seen to date.
To be fair, there are some new ones that are popping up that I have not tested yet (like the Telson 5-25x56) and some excellent ones that are less expensive (like DNT 7-35x56). Still, of the ones I have had a chance to spend some serious time with, it is Javelin and Ares ETR. Athlon has a Gen2 of the ETR that was announced this year, that I am very curious to test against the Javelin. Compared to the Gen1 ETR, I thought they were extremely close optically, but I slightly preferred the turrets and the reticle in the Javelin. We'll see if Athlon's Gen2 will change that.
I talk about Delta a good bit, but the brand is still not very widespread in the US. Still, there are several people selling them including Don at @AnnexDefense . Since he is a member here, I...
Is there a way to make a target card by using lrf binos that can communicate with a weather meter like a kestrel or Garmin, without touching the weather meter?
NOVA has a special on testing effectiveness of Revolutionary War weapons. Here is an interesting article on it.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/04/new-nova-doc-puts-revolutionary-war-weapons-to-the-test/
Apparently, Easter also qualifies for discounts. I glanced through my email and saw a couple of things that appeared to be of interest.
Palmetto is clearing out Crimson Trace Rad Max red dot sight for $89. It is pretty decent RDS and at that price is very worthwhile.
https://alnk.to/3J7YBql
Also at Palmetto, they have subsonic 300Blackout at a pretty decent price. I bought a few boxes last time they had it discounted and it has worked very well for me.
https://alnk.to/9bvt0Km
My home defense gun is a suppressed 300BLK Honey Badger set up for subsonic use. However, practicing with it gets expensive because of the cost of subsonic ammo. This stuff makes occasional practice a little less damaging to my wallet.
Tract has the discounted 4-25x50 with the MRAD Eagleman reticle on pre-order for under $1344. It is a good deal and I like the reticle.
https://tractoptics.com/toric-uhd-4-25x50-34mm-ffp-mrad-eagleman-long-range-hunting-rifle-scope/?dm_i=5GBO,OYQH,3ZZ4CE,2YC8N,1
I saw this scope ...
Well, since I was running a little low on AAC Precision 175gr 308 ammo, I ordered another batch. This one came from a different lot than the batch I had before.
I have about 13 months left to be in my 40s, so I figured this is my last opportunity to get cheeky with this project title.
As I mentioned during last week's livestream, I am kicking off a large review encompassing seven different riflescopes that really share only one thing in common: their objectives are in the 42-44mm range.
Here is a comparison table of the specs for the scopes I have on hand. Note that the Swampfox Warhawk 2-10x44 is not going to be in this comparison very much. I'll do a separate video on it. The biggest reason for that is simply that this spec table is becoming too long and comparing so many scopes all at the same time is exponentially more difficult. I was going to take out either the Warhawk or the Blackhound since neither of them have a zero stop, so I flipped a coin and Blackhound got to stay. I will go over it a little bit below the table.
I did not set out to have this particular line-up in mind, but I like this riflescope type, so I ended up with all of these on hand.
Some of these scopes I have lready reviewed quite thoroughly, namely the Blackhound and Tract.
If you look at the specs carefully, you'll see that these range from true ultrashort designs (GPO and March), to "kinda short" designs (Leapers, Delta, Leupold and Blackhound) to a conventionally sized Tract Toric. Some of these lean toward the MPVO category. Some are unabashedly aimed at the Crossover market. Tract stands alone as a relatively conventional hunting scope, except configured very nicely to do everything as necessary. Another scope that would fit this category very well also that is no longer here is Vortex Strike Eagle 3-18x44. I might reference it occasionally.
I have a good amount of mileage with all of these, although I have not yet released a final review on every design. Still, I can offer some initial thoughts in order of ascending price.
Like any self respecting firearm enthusiast I always have some number of projects going on concurrently. One of them is a fast twist 22-250 bolt gun.
Every once in a while Tikka makes a run of 22-250 T3x rifles with 1-8” twist barrel and I happen to have one. That dramatically changes the varminty character of the 22-250. With a modern 80gr bullet, it is a nicely viable hunting rifle for small and medium game (just about perfect for pronghorn). It is also a very capable long range number. At the altitude where I live, it does not go subsonic until you get to about 1400 yards.
1-8” twist will not stabilize the heaviest available 22 bullets, but works well enough for anything up to about 80grains, depending on the bullet construction.
